{Note: Tomorrow, October’s Letter from the Farmhouse (which includes a way to welcome autumn into your home) will mail out to you if you are subscribed to my monthly letters (scroll down to the bottom of the page to subscribe). My monthly letters are full of seasonal delights, creating your home into a haven of holiness, quiet questions to frame your month, occasional recipes, and ways to live a life of wonder. If you are only subscribed to my “new posts,” you won’t receive this letter, so double-check you are subscribed, because I would hate for you to miss it!}
Thoughts on a Friday:
This farm is home. This spacious, tiny farm. And now there are baby trees and throngs of weeds, sunshine, and compost. But someday soon, there will be wildflowers and bigger trees, vegetables and berry bushes, fences (and maybe baby cows? {fingers crossed.})
And this really is a farm though we grow not large crops of the field. Our crops are of the smaller nature — the rippling pond kind. We are growing fields of righteous values in the landscape of our children’s hearts. We are cultivating hard work and honesty. We are gathering fields full of memories of bike rides and homeschool and family walks and 500 piece puzzles and homemade dinners. We are nurturing the seeds of divinity that will show them the gifts they have and how they will bring them to harvest as they use them to build the Kingdom of God.
Yes, I’m singing because this farm is home. This blank canvas is gradually being painted on and I have little time for a virtual reality, because I have a whole real world in front of me to cultivate and such little time.
But there’s just time enough if the flame keeps flickering in this morning light. And the sun keeps rising up with light-filled promises and I keep snatching the morning hours to glean, to grow, to treasure up and pour out.
There’s time enough to follow the bird’s trail, to make connections, to feast on memories and paint some new ones.
There’s time enough to nurture the natural curiosity of children and turn it into wonderment. This straw is all turning to gold because He is the weaver of beautiful things and I am His small and simple instrument. And I will go singing, ever singing, because this farm is home.
~~~Invitation to Ponder~~~
Think upon your home. Be it small abode or spacious mansion, log cabin or suburb condo, city apartment or country cottage, it is the space where hearts are nestled and nurtured. You might consider writing an “Ode to your Home” in your journal – a tribute of gratitude to this sacred structure. Describe your home in detail and all of the blessings it provides for you and your sweet family. Remember: “Only the home can compare with the temple in sacredness.” (Bible Dictionary, Temple)
May our homes ever be havens of holiness.
